The Empire’s Corps: Book 01 - The Empire's Corps (32 page)

And then there were the Crackers, who had been keeping very quiet. How long would it be until they joined the fight?

He glanced down at his timepiece and turned towards the ladder. It was time for the oath.

***

The heat struck them as soon as they stepped out of the aircraft, a wave of heat that was almost physical in its intensity. Michael recoiled and then stepped forward, feeling sweat trickling down his back. The aircraft had been air-conditioned, but it had only served to leave them unprepared for the heat of Castle Rock. He stumbled slightly as he moved forward, hunting for the lines before realising that there were none. They had to form up without any aids at all. Barr watched, his face turning darker and darker with every little mistake, until he finally barked a series of orders. The new recruits formed up and waited under the blazing sun.

“Stand to attention,” Barr said, as a newcomer appeared at one end of the field. “Captain Stalker will now take the oath.”

Michael tried to stand up straighter as the Captain paced from recruit to recruit, his eyes passing from face to face. He wore a dress uniform with at least a dozen decorations, although Michael had no idea what they all represented, if anything. Apart from the Rifleman’s Tab at his collar, they were all meaningless, so far. The Captain’s stripes on his shoulder only made sense when he realised what they had to stand for.

“The Marine Oath has remained unchanged since the Empire itself was founded,” Captain Stalker said. There was an air of calm competence in his voice, the voice of a man who didn't have to prove himself, or scare the recruits shitless for their own good. Barr had commanded obedience through shouting; Captain Stalker claimed it as his right. “Its basic form goes all the way back to the days before the Federation, before Earth itself was united under one government. It is living history. It is also your last chance to back out. If any of you have changed your minds, now is the time to leave.”

There was a long pause. No one left. “Good,” Captain Stalker said. “Repeat the Oath after me, inserting your own name at the beginning. I, Edward Stalker, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Empire against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Imperial Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

“I, Michael Volpe, do solemnly swear...”

Michael felt...odd as he spoke the words, as if a thousand generations were looking over his shoulder. He had never seen it in the Civil Guard, but then, the Civil Guard of Avalon was barely a hundred years old. The Terran Marine Corps dated all the way back to the days of the Terran Federation and then all the way back to Old Earth’s pre-spaceflight era. It was older than the Empire, older by far than Avalon itself, older than he could imagine. The various military forces that had given birth to the Marine Corps dated back centuries even before spaceflight itself. History itself was tapping him on the shoulder.

He felt a lump at his throat as he finished the Oath, before standing to attention and saluting the Imperial Flag waving from one corner of the field. It wasn't a perfect salute – Barr had promised them that they’d be spending as long as it took to practice – but somehow it meant more to him than it had before.

“Welcome to the Marine Corps,” Captain Stalker said. It was impossible to imagine him as a young recruit, yet he must have been one, years ago. If he could do it, so could Michael. “Dismissed!”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Freedom of information is one of the Empire’s fundamental tenets. Indeed, by law, every colony world has to have a branch of the Imperial Library established in its capital city, free for all to enter and use. And yet, the Empire has grown more and more restrictive of information over the last few decades, concealing everything from economic data to political statistics. It is therefore very hard to draw a comprehensive picture of the Empire’s overall state. It is even harder out on the Rim.

- Professor Leo Caesius,
The Waning Years of Empire
(banned).

Leo sat at his desk in the Imperial Library, staring down at a sheet of paper without actually reading it. The Imperial Library should have been bustling with life, like the famous Library of Earth or the planet-sized Library of Alexandra, but there were only a handful of visitors. It wasn’t surprising. Avalon’s Council had pulled a fast one and banned anyone who had any debt at all from claiming any of the Imperial services that were theirs by right. Knowledge was power, after all, and the Council had a good reason to keep the rest of the population as powerless as possible.

The Imperial Library was one of the prefabricated buildings constructed in the centre of Camelot, built out of heavy battle steel. It should endure for centuries, even without human care and attention, and could survive anything short of a direct nuclear hit. In the early days of interstellar spaceflight, Leo knew, colonies had failed and their populations had fallen back to barbarism. The Empire, in a bid to prevent the loss of knowledge that might have saved them, had ordered that each new colony play host to a branch of the Imperial Library, which would store all of humanity’s hard-won experience. The farmers and miners of Avalon should have been visiting the library regularly, searching through its vast databanks for information that would be useful to them, or would make their farms and mines more productive. Avalon was a new colony and it was quite possible that any problem encountered on the planet had been encountered before, by other human colonies. The library existed to help the human population survive.

It had been Fiona, desperate to find her husband something to do, who had asked her friends for suggestions. Avalon didn't have a university yet and it was unlikely Leo would have been allowed to teach there in any case, not after his exile from Earth. One of her new friends had suggested the Imperial Library, pointing out that the last librarian had quit in disgust and caught the first starship back to the sector capital. Leo had been delighted at first – if nothing else, he would have access to research materials for his future works – but it hadn't taken him long to realise that it was a dead end. The library’s restricted nature prevented most people from coming and using the massive files.

The Imperial Librarians would be furious when – if – they found out, he knew. In many ways, they were just as determined and coherent as the Marines, devoted to ensuring that the spark of knowledge remained alive right across the Empire. Their Imperial Mandate would certainly prompt them to action, yet they might not be able to do anything. If the former librarian hadn’t been able to convince them to intervene, protests from an exiled professor wouldn't get any further. Avalon was so far from Earth that it might be impossible to do more than issue orders and hope that they would be obeyed.

He stood up and paced over to the small coffee machine the previous librarian had left behind. It had been imported from a more advanced world at considerable expense and still worked perfectly, although the coffee grains had decayed long ago. Leo had replaced them with grains grown on Avalon itself and put the machine back into service, although the taste wasn't quite up to the standard of Earth’s coffee. But then, the Imperial University had always had the best, demanding – in exchange – that professors and students didn't think for themselves. Leo himself had lost himself in academia until it had been too late.

The small office held nothing, apart from a desk, a computer and a small row of printed books. In theory, Avalon should have set up a printing press long ago and started to copy all of the manuscripts waiting in the massive library databanks, but Leo hadn't been surprised to discover that only a handful of books had been reproduced. Most of them were fictional works, rather than practical books that might aid the planet’s population, distributed to distract them from their problems. Leo had added a picture of his family and nothing else.

He sat back down and sipped his coffee, wincing at the taste. The job was boring because there was nothing to do. Anything that might have required his services had already been done before the last librarian quit. There were few visitors to attend to. Fiona might have wanted him out of the house, or she might have believed that a librarian would have enjoyed the same sort of social cachet as a Professor at the University of Earth, but he was bored. He could feel his mind slipping away into hopeless boredom. The job didn't even pay that much.

Mandy’s picture seemed to wink at him and he smiled, even though his daughter was a constant worry. He'd known that she had had an active social life on Earth – even though he hadn't wanted to know the details – but he’d also known that it was safe, unless she was insane enough to walk into the Undercity. On Avalon...she’d come far too close to being raped and murdered. The thought kept running through his head. He could have lost his daughter barely two weeks after they’d landed on their new home. Colonists had had that experienced throughout history, of course, but nothing like that – or so he told himself. Mandy had walked quite willingly to her own doom. If the Marines hadn't been there...the consequences didn't bear thinking about, yet he couldn't
stop
thinking about them. Horrible visions kept rising up behind his eyes.

Leo knew parents who would have screamed the place down if their daughters had been spanked by a stranger; indeed, on Earth, it would have been regarded as physical abuse. He could only be grateful, for it had caused a change in Mandy. She was more subdued and thoughtful than she had been in years, although that might also have been because of her lucky escape. A few nights sleeping on her tummy was infinitively preferable to being raped and murdered. Who knew...perhaps she would grow into some form of maturity. Or perhaps he was just dreaming. He knew from his own studies that if a child wasn't taught right and wrong from a very early age, the behaviour would never truly improve.

The Marine communicator he’d been issued buzzed. “Professor,” a voice said, “would you be able to come to Castle Rock at your earliest convenience?”

Leo smiled. He was so bored that an invitation to visit anywhere would have been welcome. “Of course,” he said. “Where do I go to be picked up?”

“The spaceport,” the voice said. Leo was sure that he knew the speaker, although he couldn’t put a name to the voice. “There are flights from the spaceport every hour on the hour.”

Leo stood up and walked out of the library, closing and locking the doors behind him. The library position came with a car and driver – the car burning primitive gasoline rather than using batteries – who waited outside every day. Leo had suggested that the young woman spend time in the library herself, but she had refused, being more interested in watching some of the vision shows on her terminal. They were, in fact, copies of shows that had been fashionable on Earth years ago, designed to help keep the population’s mind off their own affairs. Leo’s position had caused him to be aware of the various social dampeners operating within the Empire, trying to prevent internal strife. They had been breaking down for years.

The driver drove like a manic, leaving Leo silently praying for safety as they roared out of the city and down the long road towards the spaceport. Every so often, he’d been told, the Crackers slipped a team into position and fired on any official-looking vehicle, just to remind the Governor that they existed. They’d been quiet since the Marines arrived, although that might change in a hurry. Captain Stalker’s success against the bandits and the new recruits would tip the balance of power against the Crackers, unless they acted swiftly to counter the threat. Leo knew, from his own studies of insurgent warfare, that it wasn't going to be easy.

“Here we are, sir,” the driver said, as she pulled up outside the spaceport. “I’ll have to wait for you here.”

Leo scowled as he passed through the security checkpoint and was pointed towards a small VTOL aircraft that had probably been picking up Marines who had gone on leave. They’d proven surprisingly popular in the city, if only because any thugs who tried to pick on them rarely survived the experience. Mandy wasn't the only girl to have been saved from death or worse; indeed, the Civil Guard had even started to shape up and patrol properly in the wake of the Marines. The Council had had a long list of complaints about Marines taking the law into their own hands, yet they could do nothing. The Marines didn't set out to find trouble; it just found them.

He reflected on that as the VTOL took off and headed over the blue sea to Castle Rock. The last time he’d seen the massive island, there had only been a few buildings, mainly former homesteads that had been abandoned when the Marines moved in. Now, it had mushroomed into a military base, with dozens of buildings scattered around and guarded by armed Marines. He caught sight of new recruits training in a field as the VTOL came in to land and found himself hoping that they turned into good Marines. There simply weren't enough Marines to make a major difference, not yet. The aircraft touched down with a bump and he had to go through another security check before he was escorted into the new office block. It was, thankfully, air-conditioned.

“Captain,” he said, in greeting. “Do you need all of those security checks?”

“You’d be surprised,” Captain Stalker said, from the window. The building looked down onto the training yard. A hundred men, stripped to the waist, were going through exercises under the command of a man barking orders. Leo looked at them and felt distinctly fat and podgy. “Some people have tried to slip in through the security checks and we’ve turned away a couple of fishermen who tried to land. It’s rather worrying.”

Leo followed his logic. “Because the Crackers might try to slip people onto the island,” he said. “Were the fishermen Crackers?”

“I’d be surprised if they didn't have Cracker sympathies,” Captain Stalker said, dryly. “How is your family?”

Just for a moment, Leo wondered what – if anything – Captain Stalker knew about recent events. “Fiona is having...a great time amidst the social whirl,” he said, slowly. “Mandy is improving and Mindy has decided that she wants to join the Marines when she’s sixteen.”